Through the week I have taken the unit apart piece by piece cleaning each part and inspecting. I glass beaded the can and master cylinder portion and lightly honed the bored on the vacuum canister. I will be used one of Kanter Auto Product BTV rebuild kits in the rebuilding process. I will also be replacing the original piston with a brand new stainless steel one.

Thanks
James From
Kanter Auto

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With the days short and the nights long and cold here. I try to remove parts that I can take inside and rebuild as my garage has no heat.

My plan is to set one goal/task a week and try my best to accomplish it. So this week is the power brake unit. The hardest part was the disassembling of the vacuum section the inner guts had fused itself to vacuum can.
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I haven't had much time since the holidays are in full swing.But I did find sometime this past weekend to remove the power brake unit.

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As you can see the unit is in rough shape but with some work I will have it good as new

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I Figured that since my 400 was a project it would be best to move over to the project section.


As some of you may know I work for Fred and Dan Kanter, I currently work in thier marketing department. Before coming to Kanter Auto Products I worked in the industry restoring all types of antique and vintage automobiles. So vintage cars have been a passion of mine nearly all my life.

Now back to Packard I purchased, I bought the car from Stu Blond he had owned the car for many years and had purchase the car back in the 80's in California. My current plan is to get the car in mechanical order and then attend to the body and paint. This is my first Packard and I am very excited on bringing it back to life.

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Quote:

Well she let me get the car, but there was a catch I would have to sell one of my other antique (3)cars. I hoping to avoid that lol.

It's funny you stated "TLR cars are a special joy to drive" Fred and Dan Kanter said the same thing.

Well I did some more work on the 400 this evening and ran it for a little bit. Well it looks as though I will be replacing the drive side exhaust manifold. The manifold has a cracked at the rear port.

Randy,

It's funny that you mentioned Warren Ohio. I was out last night cleaning out the 400 inspecting the trunk floor and vacuuming out the interior. I came across a poster from that event and the cars display information was that back around 2002?

The car was bear to get out from where it had been hibernating that last 10yrs. When I got there I started with filling up the tires and then worked my way up to the engine. I cleaned the cap,rotor, and filed the points. Sure enough the engine woke up rather easily and ran good. Then on to the next issue the float was stuck and fuel was pouring out all over. But a few knocks from a screw drive handle and the float free'd up. So at this point I put the car in reverse and nothing. So then I jack up each side of the car making sure each wheel spun free. Sure enough left rear locked solid. So after about 35 minutes and few choice words I was able to remove the drum free up the frozen adjuster and get wheel to spin free. So I jumped back into the car, started it up and put in reverse now the car moves but the brakes themselves do not work. So I Carefully and Slowly idled car out of the driveway and over to my trailer and winched it up. On the way we received many thumbs up by many other cars on the road. What a great feeling

Thanks
James

Well while many of our wives and family were out fighting the crowds for tv's and the one must have Christmas gift. I was busy early black Friday morning hooking up my trailer and gathering my tools to make the trip down to south jersey to pick a 56 400. All I can say is thank you to my wife for letting me get this one last car.

As some of you may know I work for Fred and Dan Kanter, I currently work in thier marketing department. Before coming to Kanter Auto Products I worked in the industry restoring all types of antique and vintage automobiles. So vintage cars have been a passion of mine nearly all my life.

Now back to Packard I purchased, I bought the car from Stu Blond he had owned the car for many years and had purchase the car back in the 80's in California. My current plan is to get the car in mechanical order and then attend to the body and paint. This is my first Packard and I am very excited on bringing it back to life.

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Thanks
James

Ross, you brought up a very good point. I was going through other posts on this forum this weekend and came across one of bobby previous post on tire pressue and his tire size was posted in that post. He is running a 8.20-15 so that may be where the issue lies with the tire clearance when removing his tire. That car should be running a 8.00-15. But we will know for sure when we get the measurements from bobby.

Thanks
James From
Kanter Auto Product

Bobby Re: Tire Pressure #21
Home away from home


Joined:
2010/2/19 18:46
From USA
Posts: 146 I've got 820-15's on my 5406, and according to the Packard service adviser update, the correct inflation is 22/20. I recall the original spec of 24/24, which provided a noticeably harsher ride (esp. over bumps and pavement irregularities) with no improvement in handling...very un Packard like!

There's no harm done keeping the tires at 24 if you like that pressure, you typically get better MPG and handling with higher pressures, as well as improved tire life, although the couple of lbs. we're talking about would probably provide negligible results, especially if you only use it as a Sunday cruiser.

As a FWIW, if your car is original and you prefer firmer handling (these cars actually handled well given their size and weight), then it might be worthwhile to change out the bushings in the suspension and install new shocks.

Posted on: 3/22 11:02:46
_________________
1954 black Patrician, unrestored, mostly original, minty!!
Transfer

Thank you Bobby for going the extra mile to measure the shocks. I am not insinuating by any means that the issue lies with you or your car. I am going through our standard steps in trying to correct the issue. We are not trying to make any part of this difficult. We need to start with a baseline. That normally entails with having the customer take measurements of the product that they recieved. We then in turn can match these measurements to a sample from stock if they match then we must look at other possible. We strive to correct customer issues as quickly as possible but sending shocks without taking measurements of the ones you already received would not ensure that you wouldn't receive the same shocks again.

Again thank you for taking your time to take measurement.

James From
Kanter Auto Products

Bobby,

The reason that we have asked for the measurements of the shocks we sent you is because if they measure the same as what i outlined in previous posts then it would be no help to the issue to send another set of shocks that are the same length. In turn you would be doing double the work. We to are trying to make this as easy on you as well as us.

Thanks
James